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Very special thanks to Tom Brazelton who makes a comic called Theater Hopper. I met Tom last year when we shared a hotel at C2E2. Right off the bat I realized we had a lot in common. We were both young fathers straddling the line between creativity and responsibility, we did comics based on pop-culture references that most likely alienate 90% of the populace, and neither of us seem to understand why everyone else is so wrong all the time. Tom is the kind of guy that will tell you a story about internet confrontation that ends with, “And after 3 days of me telling him what a fucking twat-face he was, HE STILL DIDN’T AGREE WITH ME!” Then he looks at you with a completely straight face and gives you the ol’ “Right? Amiright? Can you believe this guy?” eyes. You have to admire his commitment. Sometimes I wish he would make a second comic featuring the alternate universe versions of his characters where they only watch indie flicks and call it “Theatre Hipster.” That one’s a freebie, Tom. On the house. Now get to work.

You can purchase Tom’s books and other merch HERE or read his movie reviews HERE.

I know this is super inside-baseball-pants for you non-Star Trek nerds, but I just got back from a two day stint at a Star Trek convention so please cut me some slack. Please feel free to cut a bit more slack (as long as slack is already being cut) for the Lo-FijiNKS comic. I was pretty burnt after the con and didn’t feel up to coloring and shading and… drawing all that well.

There was a TNG panel at this particular con, and the guests were Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, and Michael Dorn. I decided to ditch my table for an hour and check out the fun times. Highlights included Frakes moving through the audience for the first 20 minutes or so asking all the standard, tired-ass questions they’ve all heard a thousand times. At one point he asked “When y’all were on the spaceship and y’all stood on the glowing floor things where also the ceiling was glowin’ and y’all got beamed to the planet… what did that feel like?” [at this point I should mention that Tia Carrere was also a guest at the con] Brent Spiner responded with some techno babble about his molecules being dispersed, yo which Michael Dorn replied “I would like to disperse my molecules all over Tia Carrere.” This would be quite an ordeal for Ms. Carrere because, as you know, Klingons have two dongs.

Great Scott! A reader commission I did at the con. Click to Embiggen.

I got a quick chance to meet Frakes and Spiner and give them each a copy of the “Riker, I hardly know her” comic. It was gratifying to share space with a couple of my childhood heroes if only for a minute or two. We talked briefly about Leverage and our mutual admiration for Jon Rogers and Amy Berg. Brent Spiner said, “When is she going to get me on Eureka? Wil Wheaton’s on that show every other week!” Throughout the panel and our encounter afterwards Brent Spiner was none too shy about showing his dissatisfaction with the “lack of Brent Spiner awareness and appreciation” among the general public. To that I say, “Buck up Brent. You are my favorite robot-man and you are pretty great.”

Oh, Shatner was there too. Whatever.

COMMENTERS: Share your “meeting your heroes” experiences. Did they live up to the hype or were you disappointed?